We’re targeting northern Nigeria for massive oil palm plantations — NPPAN

By Gabriel Ewepu

IN a bid to reposition Nigeria as a global leader in palm oil production, the National Palm Produce Association of Nigeria, NPPAN, weekend, disclosed massive oil palm cultivation and plantations in northern Nigeria will soon commence.

The President, NPPAN, Dr Alphonsus Inyang, made the disclosure while speaking on the ‘Validation Meeting of the Nigerian Oil Palm Development Strategy’ to revamp the nation’s oil palm subsector of the economy.

Inyang said Taraba State is already working on that in partnership with the Association to become a hub for oil palm production, saying, “Taraba State with 69,000 plus square kilometer have more land to do oil palm than the whole of southern Nigeria.”

Meanwhile, according to him, “Taraba State have a longer sunshine than southern Nigeria and they also have water in some parts of the state.”

He further stated that, “Those are the things we are going to leverage on”, and he added that, “Niger state too have areas to produce oil palm, Kogi and some savannah states too have same terrain good for oil palm production.

“So we are going to take advantage of most of these things to see that we go north”, and he explained that “If we remain in the south, we might not be able to meet up with the targets of this Strategy. We need to go to the north, especially Niger, Kogi, Nasarawa and Taraba.”